Playdemic Ltd
About
Playdemic is a games company based in Cheshire, United Kingdom and it is owned by Electronic Arts. It was established on 16 December 2009 in Manchester by Paul Gouge and Alex Rigby as a developer of social games, mainly for Facebook and later also for iOS and Android. Both founders had a history at Rockpool Games, a UK company creating content for mobile devices and other mobile companies before that. Rockpool was acquired by Eidos Interactive and in January 2009 confirmed to have been closed.
Playdemic debuted with the social Facebook game Gourmet Garden in 2010, targeting women aged 35 to 50. Other social games released in the early years include Crossword Buddies (2012), Eye Spy! (2012), Village Life (2012) and Quiz Buddies (2013). The release of Gang Nations (2015) displayed other groups were targeted as well.
In January 2011, Playdemic was acquired by RockYou and was renamed. At the time the studio employed sixteen people. Later that year RockYou faced financial instability and the studio performed a management buyout. The company was renamed Playdemic again.
In 2012 it acquired the studio Ideas Pad based in Cheshire and they renamed it Playdemic Development. The two studios most likely moved into a single location as Playdemic's address became the Cheshire location. From then on Playdemic was always referred to as a single entity as Playdemic Ltd., even though both companies remained active.
On 27 February 2013, the company announced that UK game pioneer Ian Livingstone was appointed company chairman as he was an angel investor in the studio.
The company's biggest success is the social golf game Golf Clash (2017). By September 2018 revenue was estimated to have surpassed $225 million.
On 8 February 2017, Tt Games (owned by Warner Bros.) announced the acquisition of the company with the goal of creating new LEGO titles for mobile devices. In 2019, the studio launched their first game LEGO Star Wars Battles co-developed with TT Odyssey for Warner Bros., but it never left the beta phase and was shut down on 1st July 2021. In the meantime the title was reworked by from a free-to-play title to a full game part of the Apple Arcade library and re-released in September 2021.
In June 2021, Playdemic was purchased by Electronic Arts for $1.4 billion. Warner Bros. stated that they sold Playdemic to focus more on building Warner Bros. storied franchises.
